I almost wrote that he's pretty much a guarantee of quality, but then I realised that was total horseshit. He has, however, continued to appear in some of the greatest and most imaginative games of all time, with level design and controls against which every 2D and 3D platformer are measured.

Mario Bros 1 and 3, Mario World, Mario 64, Mario Galaxy 1 and 2, Mario Odyssey. All games that could realistically appear on a top ten list of the greatest games of all time. Let's give it up for, Mario, and, in particular, Galaxy 2.

Hot takes, let me see. Erm... it seems to be a hot take to think 3D World is fucking brilliant, so that I guess. Oh and New Super Mario Bros is great with pals.

Totally agree. 3D World is solid, feels like a modern take on Mario 3, but never really hits the peaks you expect from a Mario game. Both it and the New Super Mario games are improved significantly with friends, although I'm ashamed to admit I did get proper stroppy at a group of friends once over a death in 3D World.

Not sure if I'd think it now, if I replayed it, but I reckon New Super Mario Bros Wii is better than 3D World, even though I actively disliked the uninspired sequel for Wii U.

It's the cape feather's fault I reckon. It mean levels had to be designed bigger to accomodiate the range of movement involved. That and maybe showing off the SNES's power.

One thing I found when remaking Mario World levels in Mario Maker 2 was that they are so big, you really can't recreate them accurately without both cutting out a sizable part of the level and putting things closer together.

Still love playing it though. I think it's probably my most completed game, I come back to it every couple of years or so.

You broke Mario World for me. I'd never noticed it before, but once you said the levels have a lot of empty space, I couldn't unsee it.

I found coming from Mario 3 (which I played as a kid), it does feel a little bit meandering and plain. It's brilliantly designed but the introduction of forced level replays (for 100%, access to secret areas etc) makes it feel a little bit like you're checking off boxes.

That's the problem with Yoshi's Island too imo. And I fucking love YI, it's brilliant, but if you ignore 100% completion most of it is pretty pointless, and if you're going for 100% it's very frustrating. There's no real middleground, because collecting flowers and red coins only means anything if you're collecting all of them. This can mean playing through levels, taking a hit on a boss battle and having to do the whole thing over again painstakingly. It's a great, great game but it's very demanding if you want to play it properly.

My hot take: Super Mario 3D Land is one of the best Marios and stands shoulder to shoulder with it's peers in the Mario oeuvre. It fits the scope of being a fully fledged 3D title, with enough down-sizing to make it feel fit for handheld and worthy of the "Land" series.

My hot take: Super Mario 3D Land is one of the best Marios and stands shoulder to shoulder with it's peers in the Mario oeuvre. It fits the scope of being a fully fledged 3D title, with enough down-sizing to make it feel fit for handheld and worthy of the "Land" series.

As I said upthread, it's probably Nintendo's best version of the Mario 3 style of gameplay since the move to 3D. It's got those short levels and rapid fire pacing. I think its biggest problem is simply that the isometric graphics work against the precision platforming, and Nintendo compensate by making it slower and safer.

It's also just so visually generic and "plasticy" compared to the mainline 3D games, like Galaxy and Odyssey. I still think it's disappointing that Universal's upcoming Nintendo theme Park is based around that aesthetic over all the available Mario ones.

I found coming from Mario 3 (which I played as a kid), it does feel a little bit meandering and plain. It's brilliantly designed but the introduction of forced level replays (for 100%, access to secret areas etc) makes it feel a little bit like you're checking off boxes

I'm a big Super Mario World fan, but I get the impression it was considered a bit of a disappointment in some corners at the time. Both the contemporary book Game Over by David Sheff and the pretty suspect Sega history book Console Wars suggest a feeling that Mario hadn't made a big enough jump into the 16-bit era, and that Miyamoto himself (who now calls it his favourite) described it as something like "a stepping stone" to more sophisticated 16-bit Mario games to come. Not my recollection of that era, but to some extent it would explain Sonic 1 sweeping in to steal some of the glory.

I don't get it. What's pointless about completing the levels in a normal way without collecting all the hidden shite (ie how 99% of people will play it)?

Pointless is the wrong word I guess, but most of the side areas and actual challenge in the game are based around getting 100% in a level. Don't do this and you're skipping probably 70% of the content. Which is fine, but feels a little wasteful given how it's clearly designed around the player trying like buggery to get 100pts.